U.S. sends stern
warning to Belgium on war crimes case Source Say, 19/03/2003

"The U.S. has warned Belgian authorities about the effects
of legislation that allows suits against foreign leaders on what
Washington considers to be politically motivated charges, Colin
Powell said on Tuesday. If such prosecutions proliferate, it
could be difficult for senior officials to visit Belgium, which
hosts NATO headquarters, he told a group of reporters.

The families of victims of a U.S. attack on a Baghdad shelter
in the 1991 Gulf War plan to file a complaint in Belgium against
Powell, former U.S. President George Bush, Vice President Dick
Cheney and former U.S. commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf. The
complaint would be under a law enabling its courts to hear human
rights cases. Powell joked that the next NATO ministerial meeting
might be short because of the prosecution threat. He added: "It's
a serious problem. The Belgian legislature continues to pass
laws and modify them over time, which permits these kinds of
suits, and it's the same kind of law that affected Prime Minister
Sharon." "We have cautioned our Belgian colleagues
that they need to be very careful about this kind of effort,
this kind of legislation, because it makes it hard for us to
go places that put you at such easy risk," he added. "If
you show up, next thing you know you're being... Who knows?"

U.S. pilots attacked the Amiriyah air raid shelter in a residential
suburb of Baghdad on Feb. 12, 1991. More than 400 people died,
including 261 women and 52 children. The most prominent case
so far under the Belgian law was a complaint against Sharon for
his role in the 1982 massacre of Palestinian refugees in Beirut."
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